What's "the word I'm thinking of"? Today, it's...
MAMMONISM [MAM-un-IS-em] (noun)
The greedy pursuit of riches
"Between Mammonism and myself there is a war to the knife, the knife to the hilt, the hilt to the hand."
--Mercer Green Johnston, "Patriotism and Radicalism" (1917)
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FRONDESCENTIA [FRON-dess-SEN-tee-UH] (noun)
It refers to the "leafing season", or the time of the year when plants unfold their leaves -- springtime, in other words.
"Frondescentia is the leafing of a plant; florescentia is, for like reason, the flowering of a plant."
--"The Analectic Magazine" (1817)
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DYSANIA [dis-AY-nee-uh] (noun)
The state of having a hard time waking up and getting out of bed in the morning
"Will our postdigital universe emerge carelessly from the griffonages of a soggy-brained professor, afflicted with dysania, or from some bio-powered hard drive afflicted by a crapulent program created by some cocaine-addicted technician working a second job in a meth lab?"
--Peter McLaren, Petar Jandric, Postdigital Dialogues on Critical Pedagogy, Liberation Theology and Information Technology (2020)
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SOMNICULOUS [som-NIC-yoo-luss] (adjective)
Sleepy or drowsy
"She soon went to sleep, but dreamt of distresses and vexations, of exertions demanded, and powers not to be excited; of falling from precipices, of painful adieus, and of boats foundering in shoreless waters, and was haunted by all the train of somniculous misery, which the superstitious resolve into causes, and the less weak into effects."
--Laetitia Matilda Hawkins, The Countess and Gertrude (1812) (TWITO, page 139)
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STHENIA [STHEE-nee-uh] (noun)
strength, energy, vitality
"The first condition he called sthenia," I explained. "Meaning lots of energy." "Correct. And the other group, by distinction had a-sthenia." "No energy." "Correct again. You do know your etymology, Samantha."
--Beach Conger, It's Probably Nothing: More Adventures of a Vermont Country Doctor (2011)
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PANDICULATE [pan-DIK-yuh-LAYT] (verb)
To stretch and yawn simultaneously
"I'm troubled with pandiculation, An ailment dire and rooted deep 'Tis caused by undue hesitation In rising from the couch of sleep." --George W. E. Daniels, "Pandiculation", in The Medical Pickwick (1921) (TWITO, page 106)
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PSITHURISM [SIGH-thur-IS-em] (noun)
The sound of rustling leaves or wind in the trees.
"Another day the sweet south is blowing; do you not see how the larch and lime palpitate with pleasure? ... do you not hear the musical psithurism of the feathered foliage?"
--Mortimer Collins, "The Secret of a Long Life" (1875)
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OVATE [OH-vait] (adjective)
Having an oval shape, like an egg
"Todd Smith's engaging small paintings create intricate patterns out of myriad, carefully hand-painted ovate dots, which set the eye dancing in somewhat the same manner as op-art."
--Peter Clothier, "Gallery Rounds/Bergamot Station" (2007)
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ZEPHYR (noun)
A gentle, refreshing wind; also the Greek god of the west wind.
"He saw attempted murder in the pains of green-apple colic, cyclones in the summer zephyr, lost children in every top-spinning urchin, an uprising of the down-trodden masses in every hurling of a derelict potato at a passing automobile."
--O. Henry, "Whirligigs" (1923)
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GELASTIC [jel-AS-tic]
(adjective)
Provoking laughter
"Only Desmond's gelastic comments made the tedious seminar bearable." (TWITO, page 60)
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DELIQUIUM [del-IK-wee-um] (noun)
Melting or
dissolution; liquefying; a maudlin mood
"When at length overtaken and reconveyed to the house, deliquium
followed deliquium, and when they
ceased, frenzy succeeded; the dark night of insanity had utterly quenched the
light of reason."
--Reuben Percy, The Mirror of Literature, Amusement,
and Instruction (1834)
"The worship of
Odin astonishes us, -- to fall prostrate before the Great Man, into deliquium of love and wonder over him,
and feel in their hearts that he was a denizen of the skies, a god!"
--Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-Worship
and the Heroic in History (1840)
Things melt. The salad left too long in the refrigerator turns to green slime.
A vinyl phonograph disc left in the sun warps disastrously. A plastic carafe
left too close to the stove burner assumes a comical shape. All these things
have happened to me, sad to say. But the worst was during my childhood, when my
parents gave me a chocolate bunny one hot Easter morning. While we attended
some religious rite, we left the confection in the car. When we returned, all
that was left of my sacchariferous hare was a pool of chocolate milk. And yes,
that put me in a deliquium. (TWITO, page 40)
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UMBRIPHILOUS [UM-bruh-FILE-us] (adjective)
Fond of shade
"Being umbriphilous, he may frequently be seen siting on the trunks of trees, or on the shady side of houses, etc., as he rests during the day, and flies only after dusk, often being attracted by light." --Clarence M. Weed, "Two Shade Tree Pests" (1895) (slightly edited)
Summer is coming. Don't forget this word in the hot sun.
What's "the word I'm thinking of"? Today it's....
HYPNOPOMPIC [hip-noh-POMP-ic] (adjective)
Associated with the period between sleep and wakefulness
"....knowledge of Mrs. Finch's balloon ascent had been acquired supernormally by Mrs. Thompson… and had lain dormant in her subconsciousness until awakened by a natural association of ideas set in motion on her reading about the accident to the airship, and not even then emerging into her full consciousness, but emerging only in a hypnopompic dream."
--J. G. Piddington, "Phenomena in Mrs. Thompson's Trance," Proceedings of the Society of Psychical Research (1904)
This word brings to mind the hypnopompic period I experience most mornings between tumbling out of bed and gulping down my first cup of coffee. While I'm staggering around like Boris Karloff in Frankenstein, I'm often brooding over some bizarre or disturbing event--until I realize that "oh...that was just a dream." (TWITO, page 69)
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EXFLUNCTIFY [eks-FLUNK-ti-fy] (verb)
To destroy completely
"Interrupted again! my blood boiled, and I resolved
that I would do my best to 'exflunctify' the animal at once."
--"Extract from the Journal of an Odd Fellow," in The Parterre (1834) (TWITO, page 50)
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CANOROUS [can-OR-uss]
(adjective)
Melodious; musical
"The dull life at Oxford was varied by the occasional visit of a mesmeric
lecturer; and one youth caused peals of canorous laughter by walking
round in a pretended mesmeric sleep and kissing the pretty daughters of the
dons."
--Thomas Wright, The Life of Sir Richard Burton (1906)
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EJULATION [ej-yoo-LAY-shun]
(noun)
A wailing; lamentation
“‘Eleven years of solitary confinement!’ is the ejulation of Mr.
Dickens, forgetting the crime for which the man was imprisoned!”
--Joseph Adshead, Prisons and Prisoners (1845) (TWITO, page 44)
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COSMOTELLURIAN [cos-mo-tel-OO-ree-an] (adjective)
Pertaining to both heaven and earth
"So, feet on the ground, head in the stars, eh?" said Mr. Dolty. The astronomer smiled patiently and said, "I think of myself as a cosmotellurian investigator." (TWITO, page 35)
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JEREMIAD [jer-uh-MY-ud] (noun)
A long lament or complaint, or an angry harangue, derived from the name of the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah
"Yes, a Jeremiad is needed. But not Mr. Noyes's kind of Jeremiad. For the whole effect of his Jeremiad is that we are going to the dogs, and that there is absolutely nothing good in free verse."
--Edmund Kemper Broadus, "The Lunatic, the Lover, and the Poet" in The Canadian Forum (1922) (TWITO, page 77)
What's the word I'm thinking of? Today, it's...
"Desmond’s incessant nocturnal bruxing drove his college roommate mad." (TWITO, page 24)
What's the word I'm thinking of? Today, it's...
"Last weekend, when I went to visit my vecordious Aunt Helen at the Mayfield
Psychiatric Hospital, I encountered an escaped mental patient in the parking
lot. She was wearing a dress that appeared to be stitched together from latex
gloves and a plastic bucket on her head as she crawled toward me like some kind
of human tarantula." (TWITO, page 154)
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